The present invention relates to a data communication system and communication method. In particular, although not exclusively, the present invention relates to a communications system and method which may communicate data to a large number of devices.
In some applications, a wireless network is required which supports a large number of devices, allowing data to be communicated amongst those devices with low latency. It is also desired that network devices have low power consumption, thus enabling network devices to be battery powered with minimal maintenance requirements.
For example, electronic shelf edge labelling (ESL) relates to the provision of information in a retail environment using electronic display devices. In a typical ESL system, electronic display devices are mounted upon shelves to display information, such as price information, to customers. Systems such as ESL systems have a number of requirements: they should support large numbers of devices e.g. in excess of 30,000 display devices; they should not require extensive infrastructure to be installed to support shelf-edge devices e.g. power and data cabling; display devices should require minimal maintenance; and the system should have low update latency.
It is an object of embodiments of the invention to at least mitigate one or more of the problems of the prior art.